In the series Lotus, Max Pinckers and Quinten De Bruyn document the world of transsexuals in Thailand. The gender crisis that the so called ladyboys face is transformed into a visual metaphor directed towards the identity crisis that contemporary documentary photography confronts, when it dares to reflect upon itself in a critical way and expose its internal paradoxes.

The documentary photographer that captures reality as ‘a fly on the wall’ can’t deny his directive and manipulative role any longer. His anonymity, his seeming absence is merely a pose. Finally he is the one with all the power and he chooses over ‘the decisive moment’. The tableaux that he captures are not lies, but enfold themselves within the studio that he creates from reality.